


Redamancy

by AnneBridge



Series: To Build a Home [2]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Marriage Proposal, and i can't get over them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 00:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17756708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneBridge/pseuds/AnneBridge
Summary: Redamancy, a word which here means: the act of loving the one who loves you; a love returned in full.





	Redamancy

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> English is not my first language, so if you find any mistakes, let me know!
> 
> please listen to "Marry Me" by Train :)

Since Jacques and Olivia became the Baudelaire’s and the Quagmire’s guardians, they’ve needed a house, and Jacques had unhesitatingly introduced his grandfather’s, Charles, former home to his new family.

In the beginning, it was a little bit complicated, with the kids always expecting that something would turn out wrong, or that one day Olaf would come in through the front door. The count and his troupe’s disappearance was still something that made them sleep in the same room at night, fearing they would be separated.

And things _almost_ got worse after Arthur Poe’s visit to the Caliban-Snicket residence, but Olivia and Jacques were there for the children, and it was a matter of days to the house to exhale a comfy aura and starter to look like home.

Isadora, Duncan, and Klaus had created an unbreakable bond with Olivia, they were together most of the time, and they were thinking of starting to write a book. Jacques, by having some knowledge of mechanics, helped Violet with her inventions, Quigley almost always beat him at chess, and Sunny was happy that she could share her recipes with any of the adults.

They set up a great routine, where they sat down in front of the library’s fireplace on the cold afternoons, set up jigsaw’s on Friday nights and ate pancakes with honey every Sunday morning. After the emotional shock that Prufrock Preparatory School had been — and the fact that Olaf was still alive and on the lam —, everyone agreed it was better for the children to spend that year being homeschooled.

In the time they were together, quoting one author or two, the world was quiet. And both dream of the day that feeling would be constant.

As for him and Olivia, it was being just like they’d plan before: they were together, sharing a room and they were taking care of the children. She was happy and he was too, it was exhilarating to build a home and call it’s own. It seemed there was nothing more than needed to be changed, except only one, tiny, little detail.

Jacques lifted his eyes up from his own book to look at Olivia entering the room and let out a tired sigh, and he smiled at the scene.

“Sunny had trouble sleeping,” She said, dragging herself to the mattress and leaning back against the pillows, before picking up a book of her nightstand.

About an hour ago, after a conspiratorial smile between the little girl and the taxi driver, she insisted that Olivia put her to bed and told her a night time story that night. And as the woman couldn’t deny her anything, Jacques had a few more minutes to put this plan into practice.

He just kept smiling to Olivia, watching her continue to read the book she had left there last night, and then came back to concentrate at the words in front of him. And for a few minutes, nothing was heard at the room except their own breaths and the citing of the pages being passed from one side to another.

But that didn’t last for too long, because as far as Olivia got on her book, he got more and more nervous. Jacques knew various chapters were missing until the end finally comes, and if sleep disturbed, she wouldn’t read it that night. But still, he felt his heart beating a little offbeat jut for the hopes he had.

“What is it?” Olivia asked, and it was only then when he realized he had stopped reading to observe her. Her eyebrows were furrowed, but she carried that sweet look on her eyes that only she could carry, and that made him get lost for a few seconds.

“I was just admiring you,” Jacques was honest, “because you are beautiful.”

Olivia’s smile widened little by little, as well for the blush on her cheekbones. With one of her hands, she reached for Jacques’s cheek and brought her faces closer, leaving a soft kiss on his lips.

When the pages started to move again, none of them could stop smiling.

 

_**.x.** _

 

That happened again at the following night when they made their reading ritual before sleeping. When she got her eyes off her own book, Olivia found Jacques looking at her with a look so amazed she could almost touch it. After being caught, he just smiled at her and got back to his own reading.

The situation didn’t bother her at all, Jacques looked at her in a way so caring it was impossible for her not to feel like she was loved, but she was curious.

Maybe he just liked to watch he read like she enjoyed watching him cook by the morning, and she was just too distracted before that she couldn’t notice.

It was good to be admired. She never had it too much in the old days, she was invisible to a lot of people. But now she had a family, people she cared about and that cared about her too.

Olivia turned another page of the book. The sensation made her stomach flip.

 

_**.x.** _

 

On the third night, Olivia was already in bed at the moment Jacques entered the room and laid on her side, but she was too concentrated on her book to notice anything that was not the words that were in front of her eyes.

She had only one chapter left to the end, and she couldn’t stop. Jacques shifted beside her, but that was not noticed either. The pages passed as fast as a train.

Until she stopped, focusing her eyes at one of the final pages. The phrase that made her eyes widen and her mouth go dry was not printed, say less was part of the story she was so anxious about finishing. It’s a simple, straightforward question, written on blue ink over the printed text:

“ _Will you marry me?”_

When Olivia lifted her head, Jacques was looking at her, but different from all the times before, it was not a book he had on his hand, but a small, black velvet box. It took her a few minutes to understand what was happening and, by the minute she finally did, her eyes got teary.

“Oh my... Jacques, this... You made this?” She asked, and he just shook his head, smiling a little. “You really want to marry me?”

The look he gave her projected as much love as the ones from the nights before that and Olivia needed to control herself not to turn into a mess of sobs and tears.

With his free hand, the man took the book out of her hand and rested at the middle of them both, before opening the box and revealing a pure silver ring with a shiny gemstone above it. She wanted to shout.

“It’s been three long days waiting for you to finish this book,” Jacques laughed, and Olivia came along with a giggle. “I could’ve done it in another way, but it wouldn’t be that original...”

She stared at him, not capable of putting everything she was feeling into words, and then she just kept staring at him, praying her eyes could express all she was willing to tell him but wasn’t capable of. Jacques understood her, he always did.

“Marry me?” He asked it again, on a slightly lower tune than before, as if he feared all could fall into ruins if he talked any louder. “There is nothing I would want more than to be with you and having your name close to mine.”

The librarian wanted to say something, shout something, as tears came down her pale face without hesitation. But everything she managed to do was nod and fall at his direction, connecting their lips on a desperate kiss.

After they were apart, Olivia looked at him, her eyes still blurry by her crying as they stared at his loving blue iris.

“I love you, Jacques Snicket,” she whispered, as her heart beat against her chest. She was never so sure about something in her whole life.

Jacques moves his eyes to look at all her face as he smiled genuinely. For a minute, all their problems, fires, _Olaf_ — everything was dragged far away from them. And he wished internally that it wouldn’t last long for their perturbations to not pass from bad memories.

“And I love you, Olivia Caliban,” he answered and let out a sigh, “a lot.”

There was something different in the air when Jacques took the ring out of the box and placed it on Olivia’s finger. Something none of them knew exactly how to describe, but was nice and it matched the comfy aura and the silence of the poorly lit room

“It was my mother’s,” he explained, watching her stare at the ring. “It matches you.”

Olivia muttered something in an approval, appreciating the object caringly. She was engaged. Engaged with a man she loved dearly. And he almost hit her with his taxi. She could never imagine how her life would take such a surprising path that she would be happy and not alone anymore.

 _Blessed be Jacquelyn Scieszka_ , she thought, _I need to thank her later._

Then, some realization hit her. Her eyes moved to the book she was reading and then got back to Jacques.

“Ouch!” The man exclaimed, on the moment Olivia hit his arm with a slightly strong slap. “What was that?”

“You _wrote_ on _Charles Dickens_!” She speaker seriously, but she had a quite fun expression on her face. “I don’t think I can forgive you about that.”

Jacques laughed, throwing his head backward before pulling Olivia to a hug. She would forgive him, he knew, at the moment she would see the new copy of that very same book he’d hidden in his closet.


End file.
